


The Stark Pattern

by thecat_13145



Series: The Stark Pattern [1]
Category: Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen, References to Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-06
Updated: 2013-02-06
Packaged: 2017-11-28 10:36:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/673443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thecat_13145/pseuds/thecat_13145
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I told Tony he looked just like his father. He didn't take it well."</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Stark Pattern

**Author's Note:**

> For a prompt on avengers_kink. My view of Howard Stark and his relationship with Tony is pretty much blakefancier's fault. Please read her marvelous fics.

“What’s the matter?”

“Nothing.”

Peggy Carter’s brown hair may have faded to grey, but the eyes that stared across the table at him were still as sharp as ever, as she smiled over her cup.

“You always were a terrible liar.” She reached over, playfully slapping at his wrist. “Indulge an old woman’s curiosity, if you won’t scandalise me with tales of Tony Stark.”

“You’re not old.”

She smiled. “And you’re not such a terrible liar.” At Steve’s smile, she reached over. “Come on, Captain, tell me.”

She watched the big shoulders move in a sigh, and waited.

Steve sat still for a minute, trying to put his thoughts together. The trouble was, it sounded so small, so insignificant when said out loud, but it was troubling him.

He had being in the Workshop with Iron Man, with Tony he supposed he should really call him as the other man hadn’t being in costume. Tony had being working on something, dancing around the workshop and talking about a mile a minute. And he had being sitting there watching.

Tony was slightly taller than his father had being and the music was guitars and drumming, rather than hot jazz, but it felt so similar, only the works seemed to have changed. Instead of Howard talking about power sources and mythical artefacts, it was Alternative dimensions and the science of magic. And while he didn’t understand them any better than he had understood the last part, this was the most comfortable he’d being since waking up in this strange new world, and he couldn’t help smiling.

And of course, Tony asked him what he was smiling about.

“I told Tony he was just like his father. He…” he swallowed, trying to come up with words for the dark look that filled Tony eyes, the way he slammed off the music and stalked out, even though they were technically in his lab. “Didn’t take it very well.”

Peggy chewed on her lip, not meeting Steve’s eyes. “The war changed people.”

Steve held up his arms as if to say he knew.

“Some more than others.” She looked at him. “You changed in body, but Howard…” she paused, thinking of everything that Tommy Wayne had said or more accurately hadn’t said, and everything she’s learnt since then. “Howard was changed in soul” She know how dramatic that sounded, but the young man who danced around the lab, who invited her for Fondue in Switzerland and dreamed of a flying car, had been gone when she had spoken to him at his wedding in 1946. If she’s honest, she could see him dying in 1944, when they lost Steve. She looked down at her cup.

“He became colder, more serious. He and Tony…” She paused again, staring down at the tea leaves. “They didn’t have a good relationship.”

She can see the cogs turning in Steve’s mind. Half rumours, things Howard told both of them, things they guessed.

“He was never violent towards Tony” She hastened to reassure him. “Just…distance, uninvolved, overly critical. He wasn’t…” She paused, thinking of her own last conversation with Howard, a quarrel over his treatment of Tony when he was at MIT. “He wasn’t very nice.” She finished, sighing. “And he died before they had a chance to talk.”

She like to think that Howard had taken what she said to heart, that he had planned to talk to Tony that weekend, to tell him about his own past and how proud he was of his son, but somehow she doubted it. Howard had become a very private man, and she couldn’t see that changing. A part of her had hoped that Tony had understood that. Steve’s words killed that hope.

“Don’t take it personally, just....” She paused. “Be patient.”

She thinks of a night in 1955, of Howard calling her from Piccadilly, desperate. Summoning her to the bed of a dying man who had known Howard Stark Senior in 1915, before Stark Industries began to grow, before he had made poison gases for the Western front.

Howard had needed to find out how his father became the man he did, how he turned from the young man sweeping an English Debutant off her feet, to the one who hit if she dared to speak out of line.

She suspected that Tony would be the same. In fact, if the press conference she’d seen was anything to go by, Tony might be more eager than his father was for answers.

“He’ll come to you.”

And perhaps Steve and Tony together could break the Stark pattern.

//*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*

“Hey.”

“Hey” Steve looked up from his book, to see Tony hovering at the edges of his room like it was a minefield.

Cautiously, Tony took one, two, three steps in, and stopped by Steve’s chest of drawers, fiddling with a pair of socks rolled up there. “I just wanted to apologise for earlier. Pepper,” He gave a dry smile. “She really chewed me out for it.”

“There’s nothing to be sorry for.” Steve said, carefully putting the book to one side and waiting.

He watched as Tony put down the socks and moved over to the photo of him, Peggy and Howard, just after the mission.

“So you knew my dad, huh?”

Steve nodded. “I’d like to think we were friends.”

“Can you....” There was a pause before Tony spoke. “Can you tell me about him?”

Steve nodded. “Sure.


End file.
